The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said Friday it is poised to issue supplemental guidelines on the implementation of the Vape Law, following the mandatory registration and certification of vape products by June 2024.
DTI consumer protection group assistant secretary Amanda Nograles met with industry stakeholders Friday for a public consultation on the supplemental guidelines.
“We will collate comments and publish them next month. By June 2024, we will be more strict in observing the presence of PS [Philippine standard] mark and ICC [import commodity clearance] on every imported vape products and even on locally-manufactured devices and consumables,” she said.
Amending the original guidelines released in 2022, the supplemental guidelines will be contained in a memorandum circular (MC) on ethnical regulations onto certification of vape products.
Nograles underscored the significance of aligning regulations, especially in certification of vape products, to strengthen the law.
She said the government continues to contend with recurring problems arising from the vape importation and retailing. These include smuggling, non-payment of proper taxes and con-compliance to restrictions vape retailing as enforced by the DITI.
CPG asked the Bureau Customs (BOC) to hold vape product shipments without a certificate of conditional release from the DTI.
“The conditional release allows the importer to have his shipment release up to the warehouse but subject to DTI inspection. The shipments should be compliant to flavor descriptors and graphic warning to minors, among others,” Nograles said.
The hardware or devices will be subject to product testing at the Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) testing laboratory in Cavite, while the DTI is open to accepting certification of consumables by third party testing facilities.
The Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau (FTEB), a unit under CPG, seized over P300,000 worth of uncertified vape products in March 2024 and P5.45 million worth of uncertified vape products in 2023.
FTEB prioritized the enforcement of the Vape Law, after finding out that 97 percent or about 55,260 of 56,926 online and physical vape shops were non-compliant.